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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

The reason was to emphasize that the students were trusted. Sometimes a professor would sit outside in the hall to answer questions, but he would not go in the room.

Most of the exams were take-home anyway, and included instructions giving a time limit and what reference material was allowed to be used.

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To me this sounds like admin trying to save money. I found some more discussion in a couple places:

http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/02/17/cheating-at-caltech/

https://www.quora.com/Are-all-exams-at-Caltech-take-home-exa...

That's the first I've heard that it had anything to do with saving money, and I spent 4 years there. It does, however, make life easier for professors and students when you can trust each other.

I don't know what Caltech is like today. I attended in 70's, and the honor system was considered sacred by the students. If there were cheaters, they never bragged about it, and I don't know of any. I know one who fell asleep during his takehome exam, woke up and finished it, and so exceeded the time limit. He noted this on the exam. The professor replied back that he was very sorry and was forced to give him an F. The student repeated the (required) class next year.

The number of students who did poorly on exams argues that cheating was not widespread.

If the culture has changed in the intervening years, that makes me very sad.

> The professor replied back that he was very sorry and was forced to give him an F. The student repeated the (required) class next year.

Wow, way to prize process over people. Why not let the student drop the class and just re-take the test next time around?

Is Caltech designed to teach science, or train paper-pushers?

I don't know about caltech, but many universities replace an F grade if you retake the class.

In my day (ca. 2000) there was no "forced to give an F" and in fact it was very common for exam-takers to draw a line, write "everything below this line I did after the time limit", and get partial credit for it.

Not that I recall. I don't think it's quite fair to do that, as it then becomes an infinite time exam.

But also consider that the midterm and the final were the entire grade. No credit was given for homework, showing up for class, etc. The rules about the exams were pretty clear.

However, if you had a borderline exam grade, but had done the homework diligently, the prof would use that as a tie breaker.

His fellow students thought the F was a bit harsh, but he conceded that it was fair and took his lumps with equanimity. I quite admired him for it. In the end, it didn't hurt him because he graduated and went on to a very successful career.

You could at least ask the student how much time they took actively working on the exam, less the part where they fell asleep, and compare that to the time limit.

The awake time spent on the test was under the time limit. The wall time was a few hours over.

> I don't know what Caltech is like today. I attended in 70's, and the honor system was considered sacred by the students. If there were cheaters, they never bragged about it, and I don't know of any.

I (briefly) attended in the early 1990s, and it was the same.

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